Butte County farmers show and tell for governor candidate Kashkari

A visit that was part stump speech and part education on Northern California water issues had gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari in Oroville and Richvale Friday.

Kashkari toured the inner workings of Oroville Dam and met with reporters at the top of the vista point at the lake, which is about 170 feet below maximum capacity.

The candidate has made water issues one of the cornerstones of his campaign. He sees the money proposed to build high speed rail in California as a waste of money that is better spent on new water storage. His plan is to ask voters to rescind approval for the rail system and instead approve $9 billion for new water storage.

In the Central Valley, land is subsiding, he said during a brief chat with the Enterprise-Record while traveling across the valley.

"There are limits to what we can do in the middle of a drought. But in my view, let's get going right now ... to capture more water before the next drought."

Another proposal is to have a 10-year mandatory sunset for regulations. At that point regulation would be reviewed or expire, he said.

Later in the trip, Kashkari arrived at the Butte County Rice Growers Association in Richvale, where he met with farmers and leaders of the Butte County Farm Bureau.

He checked out a giant storage facility piled nearly to the ceiling with golden-colored rice,

The mound is seed for about 80,000 acres of rice, explained association president Carl Hoff, who told Kashkari about the wildlife that thrives in Sacramento Valley rice fields.

The association headquarters is right down the road from the Rice Experiment Station, Hoff explained, where success in rice breeding has helped California growers produce 9,000 pounds of rice per acre.

Due to drought restrictions, a predicted 800,000 acres in agriculture will go fallow this year, a grower said later, when local ag leaders gathered around the association boardroom table. Locally, many growers will see surface water allocations decreased by 50 percent, they said.

The visit with rice growers came about when 3rd Assembly District candidate Ryan Schohr, a rice farmer in Gridley, struck up a chat with Kashkari at the Tulare Farm Show. Schohr invited Kashkari to check out the very dry Lake Oroville, and talk with local residents about water and farming.

Part of Kashkari's push is to help agriculture continue to be a major factor in California economics, a view Schohr shares.

Colleen Cecil, manager of the Butte County Farm Bureau, said "every regulation that comes out of Sacramento impacts Butte County agriculture," and the new regulations seem endless.

Kashkari agreed and talked about his regulatory sunset proposal, as well as his call for reform of the California Environmental Quality Act. He criticized Gov. Jerry Brown for giving expedited review for the Sacramento basketball arena, but not giving the same favored status to other projects.

Farmer Stacy Gore said the impacts of less water are easy to see in the valley. His father in Willows is talking about growing only 40 percent of his normal crop, Gore said. That means at least "two guys won't be working for me."

These are workers with families, Gore continued.

Kashkari said he had recently visited the food bank in Fresno, which is expecting an influx of people in need of food, as jobs dry up in the Central Valley.

The difference between farming and other industries in California is that farmers can't leave, Cecil of the Farm Bureau said.

Kashkari's background is in investment banking with Goldman Sachs, and he was appointed assistant secretary for the Treasure for International Economics and Development. He played a role in overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Later he worked for Pimco.

Other highlights of Kashkari's platform include:

• Allowing companies operating outside California, or operating within California, to open new manufacturing in California and be free from corporate taxes on income for 10 years, with safeguards against fraud.